"Many of the office tenants I have been speaking to have already stopped paying rent," Mel Pikos, senior partner at tenant advisory Tactic Property, said.

"Everyone is trying to immediately reduce costs so they can put their business into hibernation."

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One of the chief costs is labour. Here, nearly half the trading businesses – 47 per cent – have made changes to their workforce over the past two weeks in light of the COVID-19 effects.

As many as 70 per cent of accommodation and food services companies have temporarily reduced staff working hours. In the construction industry, 23 per cent of businesses have cut work hours while in the retail trade, 37 per cent have reduced hours and 13 per cent have placed staff on unpaid leave.

In the healthcare sector, 44 per cent of companies have reduced staff working hours.

More than 10,000 people poured into the nation's capital on the ninth day of protests over police brutality, but what awaited them was a city that no longer felt as if it was being occupied by its own country's military.